Typhoon blows plans off course but Wallabies happy to be safe

Just as well Australia came prepared for obstacles big and small at the Rugby World Cup because Typhoon Hagibis blew their quarter-final preparations wildly off course on Saturday.

As large swathes of Japan's Pacific Coast braced for the damaging super storm the Wallabies were forced to hit the road almost immediately after their win over Georgia for an emergency trip back to their pre-tournament base in Odawara.

The Wallabies were forced to make a mad dash back to Odawara to get out of the path of Typhoon Hagibis.Credit:Getty

They were supposed to head back to Tokyo until Monday and then fly to Oita, where they will likely face England in the first quarter-final on Saturday.

But rapidly worsenening weather conditions forced them on to a bus in the early hours of Saturday morning. They set a course for Odawara, the small city about halfway between Shizuoka and the capital.

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They did not make it there until 3am, after cramming ice baths, recovery, a condensed media conference and a celebration for Rob Simmons's 100th Test into the shortest possible time after the game.

"It was quite hectic. Looking back it was pretty funny," vice-captain Samu Kerevi said. "We had music jamming, guys were watching Netflix, some guys were sleeping, some guys were eating. It was raining pretty hard, we put the windows down and tried to taste the rain. It was an awesome trip.

"We can’t complain, these things are uncontrollable. I thought the staff did really well to organise all this. They worked tirelessly around the clock for us.

"There’s no complaint from the boys, we understand you can’t tell a typhoon to go away. It was all good from us, got on to the bus, the boys were throwing jokes, just trying to make the bus trip really exciting. But halfway through guys were out on their feet, just sleeping, just really tired. We are happy to be here and safe."

While the Wallabies will wait out the storm in relatively comfortable surrounds, Japan and Scotland still remain uncertain whether their final pool match will go ahead on Sunday. World Rugby will make a decision on the morning of the match after assessing the amount of rain and damage the typhoon has left behind.

The curve ball for the Wallabies has delayed their journey to Oita until midweek but mirrors England's move back to their pre-tournament base in beachside Miyazaki after their pool match against France was called off.

Japan players soaked before their captain's run in Tokyo.Credit:AP

The Wallabies were finding plenty of solace in the fact they were back in a familiar and fondly-remembered spot.

"This is the perfect place for us to be at the moment, in terms of our familiarity. This is basically home for us, being here is awesome," Kerevi said. "The facilities are awesome, the rooms, we’ve got our gym in the hotel, so in terms of that, travel is minimised besides going to the fields. Our recovery is here, I think that was the biggest one for us, minimising our travel time in terms of between training sessions. Being able to go one bus out to training and still get our sleep in, our recovery.

"The food here is awesome, the staff here are awesome. We couldn’t have had it any better."

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The physical distance between the two sides could cool the adversarial dynamic already developing between the coaches late last week.

Michael Cheika didn't miss an opportunity to remind Eddie Jones, his former Randwick teammate, that Jones - in what increasingly looked like a poor choice of words - suggested the "typhoon gods" were smiling on him.

"I saw he was saying that [not playing France] would be an advantage and the typhoon gods were smiling on him," Cheika said. "So I suppose they'd better win. They've had the best preparation, according to the coach, so they'd better go out there and win. If that's the best possible preparation. We'll see how we go."